New Jersey cop pays for motel for homeless family, service dog

GARFIELD, New Jersey (WABC) -- A police officer in New Jersey dug into his own pocket to help a homeless family.

Over the weekend, Officer Jonathan Librizzi was called to Walmart in Garfield where he met a woman who needed help.

She and her adult son had been living in their car for two weeks with their service dog.

The car broke down and they had nowhere to go. She told Officer Librizzi that most of the shelters she reached out to turned her down for various reasons, such as overcrowding and not being able to take in a service dog.

Officer Librizzi reached out to 15 shelters in North Jersey and got the same news as she did earlier.

"Her car was completely shot, wouldn't start at all," he said. "I didn't feel good leaving her out in the cold in the Jersey February month. So I figured I had to get her into someplace warm."

Officer Librizzi gave the woman some cash and paid for them to spend the weekend in a motel.

"We have a department full of people that are willing to go the extra mile and help out anybody in the community they can," he said.

He personally drove the family to the motel and arranged to have their car towed to the motel.

The tow company then fixed the car, free of charge.

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